Metro Vancouver offers up stunning variety of food in its multicultural restaurants

VANCOUVER - They're the bling of our cultural diversity. Ethnic restaurants also are the doorway into our multicultural community.

Given that some 43 per cent of people in Metro Vancouver don't speak English as their first language, there's a whole lot more than steak and roast chicken shaking down in Metro kitchens, be it at home or restaurants.

In our ethnic restaurants, you get to experience what is often the result of thousands of years of tradition, history, evolution and ritual - you're not just sitting down to a bargain meal; it's cultural archeology on a plate.

And thanks to cooks and chefs from around the world, food in Vancouver has become an exciting adventure of surprises, inventions, discoveries and pleasure, and our chefs have become modern-day alchemists, make magic out of diversity. Now is it any wonder Vancouver has become such a world hot spot for its cuisine?

The challenge is to find the gems amid the ethnic plenty. I've mapped out some of the affordable places, the mom and pops serving home-style ethnic foods. It's most definitely not a complete list and it doesn't include the high-ends like Vij's and Tojo's and Sun Sui Wah. I've been to most of them myself and some are recommendations from Vancouver Sun freelancers who review suburban restaurants.

Robert Clark, executive chef overseeing Nu, C and Raincity Grill, some of Vancouver's best places to eat, says ethnic restaurants have influenced the industry as a whole as well as his job as chef.

"Early on, it really enabled me to mainstream a lot of seafood products that weren't typically found in white tablecloth restaurants. I always relied on their ethnic origins, whether it was geoduck, sea cucumber or sea urchin. I looked to Japanese and Chinese cuisines to help me get it on the menu. It allowed me to work with and understand the product and from there, I was able to work it into a more European style."

Albacore tuna, he says, is a perfect example of learning from ethnic cuisines. "In restaurants across the city 20 years ago, I doubt many were using tuna other than well-cooked. Now it's blasphemy," says Clark. "We can't imagine it being cooked more than rare and the Japanese culture made that comfortable for us." Salmon caviar was another Japanese introduction, he says.

Today, Vancouver's continuing search for a culinary identity most definitely includes ethnic influences, but the clincher has to be local ingredients. "We've been able to take flavours from multiple cultures and move forward as Pacific Northwest or regional cuisine using local produce," says Clark. "Local produce keeps it grounded. We're still discovering and developing what regional cuisine will be but what's grown here will be the cornerstone."

It's hard to remember a time when sushi was exotic and foreign or when even lasagne was considered ethnic, but I have evidence in an old Five Roses Flour cookbook with a "Foreign Dishes" section at the back. It includes lasagne, strawberry meringue and chop suey.

We've moved on since those days, but it does beg the question of what exactly is ethnic cuisine. Italian food is so much a part of Canadian cuisine, it's been appropriated as a favourite among our comfort food and hard to think of as ethnic.

The same goes with French food - French cooking was the basis of North American fine cooking and it's deeply embedded, at least in our restaurant culture. Restaurants were, after all, a French invention. (Paris, 1765; a tavern keeper served sheep's feet in white sauce as a restorative to weary travellers and thereby invented the restaurant.)

Whereas Chinese food once meant chop suey, we know it was an imposter dish and we're now having a ball discovering the vastness of real food from China - and we've only just begun that journey.

And whereas sushi with ginger is the new burger with fries (hallelujah!), there's still much to come from Japan. Izakaya food was the most recent import, albeit jazzed up, Vancouver style. And not without irony, yoshoku is making appearances in several restaurants - that's Japan's version of North American food.

We surprise ourselves with unpronounceable words in our culinary vocabulary, like rijstaffel, escabeche and chipotle.

And then, there are the dishes that march into our lives - mee krob (fried rice noodles), rogan josh, congee, sambal, kim chi. there's an army of them, too.

For most of us, initial encounters with ethnic dishes take place in restaurants. Our first pad Thai, our first bibimbab (What? You don't know of this Korean comfort bowl of rice, fried egg, veggies, pickles and kim chi?), our first poofy naam out of a tandoor or pho or tagine - the first mouthfuls were likely served up in our ever-expanding collection of ethnic restaurants.

While Vancouver might have the lion's share of finer restaurants, good-value ethnic restaurants are scattered throughout Metro Vancouver. Richmond has an astonishing number of them, but you'll find them in any community where immigrants have settled - Coquitlam, Surrey, Burnaby, the North Shore.

These are inexpensive, unpretentious places that might dare you to try something new to expand your culinary borders.

mstainsby@vancouversun.com

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Metro Vancouver offers up stunning variety of food in its multicultural restaurants

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